Who are the leading Republican presidential candidates? According to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, often mentioned as a top prospect himself, they are former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the 2012 GOP vice presidential nominee.

Christie, in an interview airing Monday on Fox News Channel, told anchor Megyn Kelly that Bush would be an “outstanding” candidate and Walker and Ryan would be “good.” He was less complimentary of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, with whom Christie has exchanged words over federal disaster recovery aid. Christie calls him “credible.”

Christie would campaign for Paul anyway, he said. “I’d campaign for whoever the Republican nominee is. Because I’m a Republican, and whatever differences I may have with any one of those people … would be minor compared to the difference I would have with whoever the Democratic nominee is,” he said.

The interview was taped Friday, after a report from the governor’s lawyers said Christie was not involved in a scandal involving a politically motivated traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge. The next day, Christie ruffled feathers again, when in a speech at a Republican Jewish Coalition event in Las Vegas, he referred to parts of the West Bank as “occupied territories” and upset some GOP donors.

Don’t think Christie isn’t still a 2016 possibility. Running for president is “certainly something I’ve said to everybody that I’ll consider,” Christie said. The traffic jam scandal won’t affect his chances with voters, he said, though a state legislative panel and federal prosecutors continue their own probes.

“People don’t judge you on that stuff,” Christie said in the interview. “They vote for what they believe is in your heart. And can they trust you? Do you care about them and understand them? Will you be the type of person that they’ll be proud of sitting in that office?